September 2012 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• There's little doubt that winning a literary prize can give a big boost to your career as a writer. Unfortunately though many of the prizes which attract the most attention and are most financially attractive to the winner are only open to writers who have been published by a publisher, ie not self-published. Usually the books have to be entered by the publisher, not the author.
• The Booker shortlist is unusually interesting this year because of the presence of books by comparative newcomers, including two authors who have struggled to find a publisher at all and are now published by small presses.
• At the 2012 Edinburgh World Writers conference, the author China Mieville suggested that one way of safeguarding the future of writing might be a minimum wage for authors: "For the great majority of people who write, it would mean an improvement in their situation, an ability to write full-time. For a few it would mean an income cut, but you know what? It was a good run."

• In an article in a recent Bookseller, Caroline Horn wrote cheeringly about the continued health of the children's books sector. At a time when publishing for adults is well down and there are many changes which make it difficult to see far ahead, the children's publishing sector remains robust.

 Comment

• 'Never will a writer be read more closely than by his or her translator.　The best translators seem to have an extra ear, indeed, have to have an extra ear, for the literary dimensions and possibilities of their own language.　Translation can draw the poet out of someone who may not have realised the poet in himself. The response to poetry is in us all but it takes an extra talent to turn response to invention, to hear and speak echo in a fresh voice. George Szirtes, author of The Burning of the Books and Other Poems, and many other poetry collections, in The Times.
• 'What moves you is usually what is going to move a reader - a reader who is interested in your work of course. I'm not a market research king, what I have to do is look to myself and write something that moves me and that I believe in. Cecelia Ahern, author of PS I Love You and four other novels, in the Bookseller
• 'I've never worked out what the actual rate of pay is for writing - I think it would be too depressing. It took me three and a half years to write the first book, which worked out at ten grand a year, which is not too bad...' Evie Wyld, author of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice
• Looking back on the past three years, you can see just how much has changed in publishing, and how much remains the same. Some of the topics that made headlines years ago - ebooks, ereaders, territoriality, rights - are still top of the agenda; but several new buzzwords and concepts have also emerged: transmedia, gamification, social media marketing, and book discovery are just a few of them.' Edward Nawotka, editor-in-chief, Publishing Perspectives

Writers' Quote

'Authors with a mortgage never get writer's block.'
Mavis Cheek